News reports and photos from Black Diamond and the towns of Bayne, Cumberland, Danville, Durham, Elkcoal, Franklin, Kangley, Krain, Kummer, Lawson, Navy, Palmer, Ravensdale, and Selleck
Frank Grens at home with his dog, Tom — Staff photos by Kathy Andrisevic
BLACK DIAMOND—A faded, mahogany-stained crutch hanging on a wall in Frank Grens’ home is mute testimony to 27 years of work in the coal mines.
He’s been using it off and on ever since suffering a back injury December 6, 1941—“the day before Pearl Harbor”—when a roof beam in a mine tunnel near here slid and pinned him.
Grens said he was intent on quitting the mines then. But he stayed on until after the war. And he hasn’t been far from the area since.
Originally published in The Seattle Sunday Times, February 1, 1948
Descendent of pioneer-built line still doing some business in King County
By Willard Marsh
‘Old Number 14.’ Of the 29.6-mile Pacific Coast Railroad, proof that a steam locomotive actually never wears out but merely becomes obsolescent in its old age, labors mightily at the smoky end of empty gondola cars enroute to the coal mines of Black Diamond.
The Pacific Coast Railroad, in King County operates 29.6 miles of track, according to its own official timetables. This makes the Pacific Coast a short-line railroad, one of the few remaining in the United States.
The American short-line railroad was born, grew strong, served a purpose in the growth of a nation, then declined and almost disappeared in the 50 years embracing the last quarter of the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th century.
Originally published in The Record-Chronical, January 14, 1973
Story by Mary Lehto; photo feature by Larry Abele
Down in the pit. Tony Manowski probes the blackness of the Palmer Coking Coal Co. mining pit near Ravensdale on a typical workday. The company, the last mining operation active in King County, faces closure in two or three years, even though the vast underground resources of the “black diamond” have barely been tapped. Reason: more modern fuel supplies and ever-stricter safety standards. For details of the end of an era, turn the page.
Coal mining in King County—one of the area’s most colorful, if not always most profitable, industries—is nearing an end.
After more than 100 years of production, only 18.6 percent of the county’s estimated “black diamond” wealth has been mined. Yet, more modern methods of obtaining energy, and new safety regulations for the mines themselves, are gradually forcing the industry into oblivion.
“We have about two to three years yet to run,” said Carl (Charlie) Falk, office manager of the Palmer Coking Coal Co. which operates the Landsburg Mine in Black Diamond.
The mine, located near Ravensdale, is the last actively operating coal mine in King County.
Twenty-six years of Falk’s life have been devoted to coal mining and it is with more than a touch of regret that he talks about “the end.”
Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, November 9, 1988
By Heather Larson
Virgil Holman (left) cuts Carl Steiert’s hair in the barber chair Holman has loaned to the Black Diamond Museum.
All the paraphernalia necessary for an 1890s barber shop is now on loan to the Black Diamond Museum. Barber Virgil Holman has loaned his older model wooden barber chair, a genuine mug rack complete with mugs, and his extensive razor collection.
The barber pole was originally in the public market. Holman, a Lake Morton resident, ran his barber shop at 150th and Military Road.
Originally published in the Voice of the Valley, July 27, 1988
By Heather Larson
Ann Steiert, Carl Steiert, and Diane Olson talk over the distribution of her book, We Remember Black Diamond, in the museum. Carl is a contributor to the book.
“I remember the flu epidemic when so many of them died. I must have been in the sixth grade. There were about 40 kids in class, but we were down to 15.
“Of course, I kept hearing about wearing masks. Lots of Italian people were saying, ‘You gotta start eating a lot of garlic.’ So I started eating garlic … Oh boy! … by the cloves. And I’d go to school.
“The teacher would say, ‘Who’s got all that garlic on them?’ Of course, I would have to raise my hand. ‘Go home! And don’t come back until you get rid of it …’ Well, I never got the flu. I remember her chasing me home.”
So writes Jim Paolucci, an 80-year-old Seattle resident, formerly of Black Diamond.
Originally published in the Pacific Coast Bulletin, July 18, 1928
No, the mechanical contraption being demonstrated by Robert Cruickshank, master mechanic at New Black Diamond, is not a vacuum cleaner. Instead, it’s a device invented and manufactured by “Bob” himself for greasing the mine cars by air pressure.
This “grease gun” shoots the necessary lubricant into the bearings under 600 pounds pressure, more quickly and efficiently than it could ever be done by hand.
Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, July 16, 1913
Manager of Pacific Coast’s interests announces corporation’s plans for expenditure of nearly $150,000
Petroleum will be refined as sideline
Asphalt used as binder for raw materials to be manufactured from crude oil at factory on lake
Plans for the immediate construction of a briquetting plant near the south end of Lake Washington, within a mile of Renton, the first unit of which will cost between $125,000 and $150,000, were announced yesterday by James Anderson, general manager of the Pacific Coast Coal Company, which will build the plant.
This will be the first of a number of factories to be built at the south end of the lake now that the Lake Washington Canal is about to be completed, giving access to ocean-going vessels. The plant will be in operation by December 1.
Originally published in The Issaquah Press, February 28, 1990
The Finks had only lived In the Issaquah area a few years at the time this picture was taken with, from left, Olga (Fink) Goben, her mother Mary, John Fink and Emily (Fink) Camron.
The storm clouds of World War I in Europe convinced John Fink that his family would be safer across the Atlantic in the United States. They finally settled in Issaquah.
Fink was born in Austria in 1887 and first came to this country in 1903. He returned to what is today Yugoslavia in 1911, married Mary Fink and returned to America in 1913.
The family—John, Mary, Emily (Fink) Camron and Olga (Fink) Goben—originally settled in Taylor, Washington, a small coal mining town near present-day Hobart, south of Issaquah.
Originally published in the MVHS Bugle, February 1994
The ‘Big Stump’
By May Soderberg
Gathered in front of their favorite childhood play area, a huge tree stump at their former home on lower 216th in Hobart, are members of the pioneer Heflinger family during their reunion last summer. Front row: Phyllis Fels, the youngest, born in 1926 in Selleck, living in Fort Saskatchewan, (Mott), Edmonton; Carl, born in 1912 in Taylor, now in Fairbanks, Alaska; Grace, the oldest, born in 1911 in Taylor, now living in Victorville, CA; Dorothy, Carl’s wife; Arthur, born in 1918 in Durham by Selleck, now in Seattle; May (Swofford) Soderberg, born in 1916 in Hobart and divides her time between her homes in Hobart and Seattle; Marian Schmidt, born in 1921 in Hobart, lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Back row: May’s children, Rosemary Swofford, California; Bob Swofford, Hobart; and behind, JoAnne Maranville, Tacoma. The seventh Heflinger family member, Harold, is in the Soldier’s Home at Orting.
The enclosed picture is a stump located in the pasture of the old Heflinger place in Hobart, now owned by the Jacob family. What is interesting is the size of this once gigantic tree.
Originally published in The Seattle Daily Times, January 25, 1912
A.A. Flynn, foreman of federal Bureau of Mines station at University of Washington, begins campaign
Operatives throughout state to be instructed
A.A. Flynn, foreman of the station of the United States bureau of mines at the University of Washington, has launched a systematic campaign among mine workers of the state to drill the men in first aid work. W.L. Thomas temporarily will succeed Mr. Flynn at the state university while he is engaged in the instruction work.
Black Diamond History 